Owari
by RK Ryune
Summary: Inuyasha finally defeats Naraku. Kouga arrives afterward, only to find that he is too late. One shot, a bit graphic.


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夢は死にます

Kouga arrived fifteen minutes too late.

He had smelled blood on the horizon – Naraku's blood, Inuyasha's blood… and Kagome's.

Before his wolves could say a word, Kouga had run off in the direction, the swirling shouki becoming thicker and thicker as he neared the scene of the final battle. After a while, he could hear screaming, slashing, growling…

And then bone-chilling silence.

He finally arrived, heart high with the hope that Naraku was finally dead.

The scene that greeted him was not what he expected.

Instead of a victorious (if not slightly wounded) group of five, he found corpses. Lots of them.

He stepped gingerly over the body of a black-haired boy, grimacing at the gaping wound is his shoulder. Kohaku. This had been one of Naraku's minions. Obviously, he'd had the shard sustaining his life ripped out.

He stopped at the edge of a gaping crater. At the bottom, he could see the body of another human dressed in slayer's clothing, a woman this time. Kouga could only guess at what had happened, but it was obvious that the monk and his girlfriend were also dead.

Naraku's towering mass of dead flesh was strewn more or less in a ten-yard radius. There was his "human" self at the top, the head hanging by a few tendons and gushing blood that was almost black in color. Kouga scooted around a still-wriggling tentacle, and around the pile that was once Naraku.

He almost tripped on another body. Here was Mouryoumaru, Kanna, and Byakuya some distance away. All looked like they had been decapitated and evicerated.

Kouga wondered to himself what could have caused all of this death. Further off, beyond Byakuya's corpse was the fire-cat, Kirara and the young fox, Shippou. Both dead.

Then he saw her.

Kagome.

Her eyes were lifeless, her stomach ripped open. And holding her limp body was Inuyasha.

Kouga could tell immediately that Inuyasha's human side was gone. Obviously, he'd snapped and gone ballistic. And, as if to prove it, Tetsusaiga lay on the ground a few feet away, snapped into no less than ten pieces.

"Inuyasha! You bastard! Why did you kill her!" Kouga screamed, fighting back tears. Kagome, the woman he loved, was dead. She was killed in almost the same fashion that Naraku's minions had been slain.

Inuyasha only growled at him, feral and low. He cupped Kagome closer to his chest and snarled, daring Kouga to come closer.

Kouga was about to rush forward in blind fury, when he realized that Inuyasha wasn't holding her like a piece of meat. He was holding her in the same way that some she-apes cradled their dead young: tenderly, as if she would come back to life if he held her long enough.

Kouga turned away, walked around the other side of Naraku. The gears in his head slowly turned, putting the puzzle together. It seemed Naraku had done most of the killing, as he examined the scent of the blood around him. Then, after apparently killing Kagome, Inuyasha had arrived to find them, and somehow had gotten Tetsusaiga broken. With nothing to hold his rage, his grief in check, he had completely lost his human soul and become an unstoppable killing machine. Naraku and his minions didn't stand a chance.

A piercing, anguished howl snapped Kouga out of his reverie. He stepped slowly towards Inuyasha's shivering form, sneaking up from behind. The hanyou-turned-youkai, who would normally hear/smell/sense Kouga before he could even come within 10 feet, was too wrapped up in grief to even notice.

Silently, Kouga's hand went to his waist. With a heavy heart, hoping to the heavens that he was doing the right thing, Kouga drew his katana and put Inuyasha out of his misery with one clean stroke. It was an honorable death, the death of a warrior.

The next day, Kouga, his pack, and several villagers buried the dead, and incinerated Naraku and his minions.

To this day, their grave markers are still there.

_Here lies Shippo, although his body was small, his heart was strong._

_Here lies Miroku, last in his line._

_Here lies Sango, who gave her life to avenge her family._

_Here lies Kagome, who's warmth strengthened her friends._

And a bit distanced from the others, but memorialized by a small shrine housing a string of black and white beads:

_Here lies Inuyasha, the best of both men and youkai. _

終


End file.
